Saturday, July 20, 2013

Dean Liscum, Betsy Huete and I all agreed to pick five pieces from the Big Show at Lawndale
to write about. I found the choice hard to make. I liked a lot of the
pieces this year. My first sweep, I narrowed it down to 28 choices. I
made another sweep of the show, spending extra time with the ones I
liked, drawing stars on the ones I found the most compelling, 15 in all.
And that's where I am as I write these words. The final five will be
decided in a Benthamite way by paying close attention to my own
pleasure--specifically, the five I find most enjoyable to write about
will be my final choices.

I
like discovering new artists at the Big Show. And by "new," I mean
artists whose work I've never seen before. I hadn't heard of Avril
Falgout before, but I guess that's understandable--the Beaumont artist
is only 15 years old. The Black Veil Brides she depicts in her life-size figure group is a Los Angeles metal band. When I saw this, I immediately thought of "Expectations," the (highly un-metal) song by Belle & Sebastian. It includes the following lyric:

And the head said that you always were a queer one from the start
For careers you say you want to be remembered for your art
Your obsessions get you known throughout the school for being strange
Making life-size models of The Velvet Underground in clay

I
recall when I was in art class in high school (I was the "brain" in a
class full of "heads") in 1980, a girl named Annette made a brilliant
scratchboard portrait of Jerry Garcia. Depicting your musical idols is
something that teenage artists do. But few do it with the level of
ambition shown by Falgout. This group has incredible presence in the
room--they demand your attention. Falgout was one of the juror's award
winners. No one can predict how her life as an artist will unfold, but
winning a juror prize at the Big Show when you're 15 is one hell of a
start.

Sandra
A. Jacobs is another artist about whom I know nothing. A Google search
turns up a Sandra Jacobs who is a teaching artist at the MFAH, but I don't know
if Spring Dance is by that Sandra Jacobs. This piece takes a
found photograph--it appears to be a professionally made studio
photo--and adds two simple drawn elements. This photo of a young girl in
a bob hairdo appears to date from the 20s or 30s. One of the black
circles partially obscures her face and the other looms in the negative
space formed by her sitting body. I don't know why, but I feel a slight
sense of dread in this photo with its two obliterating periods. It's as if this girl is being attacked by Suprematism. The obliterating dots
are in the process of making her an unperson. The anti-humanist history
of the 20th century is weirdly wrapped up in this seemingly simple
piece.

I can't be objective about Julon Pinkston's paintings like Shirtless, Young and Catching Flesh. When I saw a show of work in this series at Zoya Tommy Gallery,
I was so bowled over that I ended up buying two of them. I'm looking at
them right now. I'm totally conflicted to be writing about this, but I
like what I like, and I love this painting. Shirtless, Young and Catching Flesh
is different from the pieces I bought in the intensity of the color.
The blue, green, pink and gray shoot it out from the wall, which
compensates for its small size (the size is fine, but in a crowded
gallery full of dozens of other works, small pieces can get lost).

Pinkston
likes tape and stickers, but instead of just using tape and stickers in
his paintings, he actually makes the tape and stickers himself. The
strips of blue, green and gray tape in Shirtless, Young and Catching Flesh are
actually strips of acrylic paint that Pinkston made on glass. These
paintings push the medium of acrylic paint to the limit. He uses in
plastic quality (in both sense of the word) of acrylic paint in every
way he can think of. The results have a gooey tangibility that I love.

Earl Staley, Bouquet29, 2013, acrylic collage, 36 x 36 inches

Having an Earl Staley in the Big Show
feels like overkill. Here's a little local show, showing mostly work by
young emerging artists--and along comes a piece by an artist who was in
the American Pavilion of the 1984 Venice Biennale. But what's awesome
about Bouquet is that Staley is still daring you to like
his work. He combines two despised genres here. Flower paintings, long
the domain of watercolor societies, have had little place in
contemporary art (although there are exceptions--Andy Warhol, for example). But he goes one further by adding what I take to be a clown face on top. I can't help but think of Bruce Naumann's Clown Torture, and looking at this painting is a kind of torture--it's so aggressive, the colors are so piercing. But it has intensity, humor, and a powerful presence. Ultimately, I fell in love with Bouquet because of its sheer craziness.

Camille Warmington is another artist with whom I was not familiar when I encountered her two paintings at the Big Show. What appealed to me about Setting Yourself Adrift
was the muted palette, which suggests a faded photograph (as does the
"1969" on the right margin) and the handling of the paint. I assume this
is painted straight from an old photo of folks sitting on the front
porch of an old house. The deliberate vagueness of the image reinforces
the feeling of distance and memory.

The painting looks
like a "paint by numbers" painting--flat colors laid out in a kind of
speckled pattern. But the watery brushstrokes are completely visible,
which makes it look "deskilled" and amateurish. I realize as I write
this that it sounds like an insult or a criticism. To avoid any Bill
Davenport-style misunderstanding, I love the quality painting
here. It totally undercuts what we expect from this kind of subject
matter. Those blotchy flat areas of watery brushstrokes are beautiful
and fascinating. Warmington undoes her subject while somehow sinking the viewer into a memory.

5 comments:

WowSo excited to be selected in the show and by you.I submitted two painterly abstract landscapes which were rejected and added the Bouquet which is part of a series of work done on fabrics. In this case a scarf bought on Harwin Dr.It is good to take a chance and enter the Big Show.

I will forego comments about this review except by way of this comment. Entering the eight decade, I am more tight ass than ever before. Cheers for all that entered and Bravo for the winners and your selections, Robert. Way to go, Earl.

Sandra A. Jacobs is the same Sandra Jacobs that is a teaching artist at the MFAH, a very talented artist & an awesome person. I believe this is her 4th time being selected for this show & she inspires me as an artist, co-worker & friend. It's nice to see the comments from HJ & DeeDee who have also been life long inspirations. :)